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One Against the World, or Reuben's War; A Novel
One Against the World or Reuben's War A Novel Author:John Saunders General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1865 Original Publisher: Tinsley Bros. Subjects: History / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Mill... more »ion-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. THE LAST SUNDAY AT NORTHOPE. When Reuben had finished his story, and read it once carefully through to correct accidental errors -- which last perusal occurred on a Sunday morning -- he gazed for a long time sadly on the bulky, discoloured, blurred, and altogether unattractive - looking manuscript, inly asking himself whether lie should send it to the meditated destination or burn it, and so help to veil over, as far as possible, that past which he had been taking so much pains to expose. It seemed now, after all his protracted labour, so easy to get rid of the document, that the mere thought fascinated him and tempted him into obedience. With Reuben, as with so many other persons, the all-engrossing idea lost in its execution the original fervour of the conception. Then he had seen much good to be achieved by the task, though also much pain. Now that he had endured the pain, the good seemed to have faded like a sunlit cloud VOL. II. u into the cold grey horizon, and to be no longer distinguishable. Of course this was but the natural reaction from excitement, which we all feel when we pause from great and unusual exertion. But he did not know this, and the state of his mind, therefore, seemed to him a kind of evidence of the folly of his whole proceeding. However, he wrapped it in a large and fresh sheet of foolscap paper, and fastened it with red wax, and sealed it with a curiously antique and bulky finger-ring signet that he had found among his mother's few valuables hidden away inside her bed in the cellar, then pledged ...« less